


Collapse, build anew

by melonbutterfly



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-14
Updated: 2009-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He doesn't need that on top of everything else; a professional crisis on the heels of a private one.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Collapse, build anew

When Eames gets to the warehouse, the others are already there, more or less. Yusuf is off in his special corner, frowning and muttering and scribbling on papers and blackboards, trying out formulas without making them real. Saito and Ariadne look weirdly secretive where they are sitting next to each other, Saito with a drily amused air, Ariadne giddy in a girly way, sneaking glances at- well.

Cobb and Arthur are there too, and from what it looks like, they've worked through the night again; they're both wearing yesterday's clothes, and they're cuddled together on one of the recliners, papers strewn across their laps and the floor where they fell from limp hands.

They're _cuddling_ , lying side by side but leaning towards each other, Cobb's arm loose around Arthur's shoulders, Arthur's face tilting way too close to Cobb's.

It makes Eames pause, just for one fraction of a second, not enough for even Saito to notice, though Arthur probably would have, had he been awake, because he knows Eames.

It's the first time Eames sees Arthur sleep without it being chemically induced.

Arthur's brow is resting against Cobb's cheekbone, and Eames is pretty sure they're breathing each other's breath.

He does _not_ like it.

What he does is grin gleefully and say in the teasing, slightly condescending tone of voice that is expected from him, "Well, what do you know, looks like dear Arthur isn't as uptight as he'd like to make believe."

Ariadne laughs, quickly stifling it by slapping her hands over her mouth, and her eyes sparkle.

Saito just looks at him.

Eames and Ariadne go into her special corner, the secluded almost-room she declared her office (mostly because it has something like walls, which means Cobb won't accidentally look at er experimental constructions and know what the labyrinth looks like), and work on air vents he instructed her to implement for security and emergencies – always have an emergency exit – into the third level. He doesn't know if Saito wakes up Arthur and Cobb and what they do, how they look. Doesn't know if he wants to know.

There's a lot you can learn by just looking at a person. Eames has been reading people almost all his life, he's an expert. Prides himself on that fact.

Now he isn't so sure anymore how much of an expert he really is. He didn't see this; saw Cobb living with guilt and grief and longing etched into his every movement, his every wrinkle, saw so much in Arthur and yet so little. It's not impossible that they found relief in each other, the two people closest to Mal. They hadn't been as close when she had been alive; it had always been Cobb and Mal, then Arthur. Sometimes Eames. Sometimes other people.

After she had been gone, it had become Cobb and Arthur. Sometimes Eames, sometimes other people. It's not impossible they became more than friends, like they have become more than Extractor and Point Man.

It's not impossible, and it's less impossible than Eames would like that he didn't see, was too blinded by his own feelings for Arthur. He's never been blind to Arthur, anything but, but it's possible that he's started being blind to Arthur and Cobb, Cobb and Arthur, after he had taken note of the changes in their relationship after Mal's death.

To him, it has never really felt like Mal really is dead; she's always been the elephant in the room, an empty space next to Cobb, made only more prominent by the fact that Cobb couldn't go home. Can't go home.

The more he thinks about it, the less impossible it seems to become that Cobb filled that empty space as much as he could with the only person who knows Mal well enough to make the pretence feasible.

He stops failing in not thinking about it, stops trying.

On the outside, his normal brash act is playing like a film.

Later, he and Ariadne go and join the others – Cobb and Arthur awake and unruffled-looking, looking like they always do, and if Eames hadn't seen it with his own eyes (cuddling together) he never would've known, never would've even suspected. And it's just not possible, it's just not possible that something like this happened right under his nose without him noticing; he _is_ too good. He knows how to watch.

But every time he meets a person, he measures them anew as if they had never met before; seizes them up like new people, adds new data to old, matches something up, connects some dots, knows more – everyone, except for Arthur, who is new all the time, who is special. Somehow, they must have sneaked this in under his radar – perhaps right after Mal, when everything around and about them was cloyed by grief and its stages, all at once – anger, helplessness, disbelief and, from Cobb, guilt. So much guilt.

He still doesn't fully understand the extensive guilt, but he doesn't ask, doesn't care unless it will interfere with the job, and so far it never has.

They talk about the plan and its details, options, possibilities, alternatives; they talk about the compounds Yusuf will use and how he'll mix them, the details, options, possibilities, alternatives.

After, Eames goes to get drunk.

He doesn't usually do this on a job, not even at this early stage; the chemicals could interfere with the compounds Yusuf tests regularly on them, and besides, he needs his concentration. The others might not know it, but they couldn't do this without him, and not just because he's brilliant. If Cobb is the one who says, "I want a house" and Arthur the one who says, "you have bricks and sandalwood available to build it and you best do it in this location during this season", then Eames is the one who tells them how to make it work. Ariadne tells them how it should look like, Saito brings the materials and Yusuf brings each of them to the site, but Arthur doesn't have the imagination to do Eames' job, and Cobb doesn't have the knowledge, the intuition.

But tonight, he goes to get drunk. He's slipping and he knows it, knows Arthur at least, if not anybody else, noticed something was off with him today; he can't afford to let them in, not now, not today. He needs the coldly burning haziness of alcohol, maybe a warm body and smooth hair that is not Arthur's, will never be Arthur's.

So of course Arthur finds him barely one hour in. Eames hasn't even started thinking about picking somebody, anybody in the bar to go home with yet, and that's unusual in itself, because normally, he knows within seconds upon entering a room whom he wants, or at least whom he wouldn't mind having sex with (and he always makes them think he wants them; it's yet another thing wanting Arthur has made easier, harder). This isn't normally, though. He hasn't wanted anybody the way he wants Arthur since he first laid eyes upon him, and it's been a pleasure and a curse all in one, though more of the latter, today.

"Eames," Arthur says, sounding reproachful and weirdly hesitant, and Eames has always been good at reading people, and he's always wanted Arthur and he's always thought he's known he'd get him someday. Now, he's not at all sure anymore, and he doesn't need that on top of everything else, a professional crisis on the heels of a private one, all during the hardest job he has ever done. But Arthur's extraordinarily skilled at being inconvenient, and it's one of the things Eames likes best about him. Likes the least.

"Arthur!", he exclaims, false smile bright on his lips, "How nice of you to join me!", and he doesn't go to the trouble of making his eyes match up, drunk and careless. Tomorrow, he'll be alright again, he tells himself. He's a forger.

Arthur narrows his eyes at him, then unexpectedly looks away, gaze sliding off Eames' face like oil, settling on some point behind him. And Arthur never does that, never runs away unless it's necessary. This is an extraordinarily extraordinary day, Eames muses. He's not nearly drunk enough for it, should've started before he got out of bed. Maybe then he would've made it through unhurt.

Probably not.

"Eames," Arthur says again, sounding both tired and determined at the same time, and Eames loves how Arthur is made of paradoxes. Hates it.

"So are you putting an end to this lovely tug-of-war of ours?", Eames asks lazily, non-sequitur, leans back in his chair. Pulls his totem out of his pocket and looks at it from all sides as if he didn't know every scratch and every abrasion. He wishes this were a dream, but knows it's not. Flips it anyway.

"Eames," Arthur says for a third time, as if all the words had left his mouth, as if his lips and tongue and breath could only produce his name anymore, and he almost wishes it were so, shudders at the thought.

He flips again, doesn't look at which side is up, instead watches the twirl of the chip as it arches through the air, again and again.

Until Arthur puts one hand on the table, leans over it, leans into Eames' space until his face is almost close, never close enough, eyes piercing and sharp all of a sudden. He says, "If you want to, I'll only ever say your name anymore for the whole rest of the night."

Arthur's always been able to read his thoughts, and he's right eighty percent of the time, too. When Eames is drunk, his hit ratio lies within the upper nineties, higher then ninety-five, lower than ninety-eight. It's because when he's drunk, he's often too lazy to play, only wants to lose, doesn't want to win. They call it being a bold drunk, or perhaps a maudlin one. He doesn't know, it's probably both.

He pockets his poker chip and gets up, catches Arthur's eyes. Follows him out of the seedy bar all the way to his hotel room.

*

When he opens his eyes, the sunlight is bright behind the curtains, casting the room into dusty, almost breathable light.

Arthur is looking at him, and he says, "Eames." His hair is mussed up from where Eames ran his fingers through it, cupping Arthur's head and holding him close, tongue in his mouth, last night.

Eames stretches, feels the pleasurable burn in his body, looks at his totem where it's resting on the nightstand. He says, "It's not night anymore, darling," and doesn't reach for it, turns away.

Arthur catches his chin and his eyes. "Isn't it?"


End file.
